Greek Migration

What It's Like To Be Forced To Leave Your Country

There comes a time in a man’s life where you have to ask yourself: What is more important? Nightlife or healthcare? Having friends or being able to support your (future) family? Loving or being independent? Sure, I have a blast in Athens; it is, after all, the one city that literally never sleeps, no matter what people say about New York or London. But there is no more money in our pockets to enjoy those things. It is hard to leave a fun life behind, but easier to leave it when the safety switch of survival kicks in.

Greeks face fear bravely and decide to pretend there is no crisis after the clock strikes 9 p.m.; they go out and party like it is their last day on earth. Bars keep sprouting in every corner of the city while more and more free events take place in main squares. And then we return home, to a house we cannot maintain, an electricity bill we cannot pay and the fear that when the support we get from our parents is over, so are we. Being close to 30 and not knowing you have a safety plan is now a dire reality.

So you say goodbye. You bring your friends over and explain to them that it’s what you have to do. Hell, I will have to work the moment I touch the ground in Australia, probably as a waiter like when I was 18 and trying to collect cash for my first car. I will have to network with a brand new collective of professionals. I will have to study once again in a university environment after a handful of working years. And, most importantly, I will have to start everything over.

Migration is not like resetting your laptop; it is throwing it from the balcony and getting a brand new one — a new one with a different language preinstalled. But who can really call it migration in this age of mobility? You can Skype your friends from your smartphone instantly. You can even play a multiplayer computer game with your buddy next door in Athens as if he were sitting next to you on your couch. But, then again, you won’t be able to touch and hug the ones you love, or look your significant other in the eyes and say, “It’s all going to be OK.” A man only feels complete when he is able to stand on his own two feet and then share that feeling in a proper relationship. Otherwise, love fades just like everything else.

But then I think to myself: I have to make it there. If I want to be able to afford the thousand-dollar ticket back “home,” I have to earn enough so that I won’t care to spend that much. I have to make it, because when everything else fails and there is no more economic support, I will have to support myself. The romantics keep saying you need no money to create, to write books, to travel, to experience. I guess they were born rich. By the time I finish this sentence, I might very well already be sitting in the university cafe, in Perth, thinking of the next step. Migration is a strong word — I would only call it an ill-timed opportunity. It is still an opportunity.